"Face punches are an essential character building part of a martial art. You don't truly love your children unless you allow them to get punched in the face." - chi-conspiricy
"When I was a little boy, I had a sailor suit, but it didn't mean I was in the Navy." - Mtripp on the subject of a 5 year old karate black belt
"Without actual qualifications to be a Zen teacher, your instructor is just another roundeye raping Asian culture for a buck." - Errant108
"Seriously, who gives a **** what you or Errant think? You're Asian males, everyone just ignores you, unless you're in a krotty movie." - new2bjj

This is a problem seen in many martial arts. It's the reason the Mcdojo was created.

In no way do I want a mcdojo created but putting the warning out there is important. This is where it happens for each of the sexes.

I was hoping the articles would spark discussion on how to keep people motivated through the hard areas.

As for Judo and getting stuck at brown belt... Isn't there more than one brown belt in Judo? It would be natural to get stuck there if there are two levels to being a judo brown belt. How do they work to help combat dropoff?

Is it really a problem that needs solved per se? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about creating a good, safe, and comfortable training environment. However, it really comes down to the motivation of the individual. You have to love grappling to continue and press on in spite of frustrations, injuries, and plateaus in your progress.

Personally, I'd rather train with 5 people that really want to be there than 50 that are just going through the motions.

Is it really a problem that needs solved per se? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about creating a good, safe, and comfortable training environment. However, it really comes down to the motivation of the individual. You have to love grappling to continue and press on in spite of frustrations, injuries, and plateaus in your progress.

Personally, I'd rather train with 5 people that really want to be there than 50 that are just going through the motions.

Yup, I've been doing this for a long time. Ironically enough our competition team is composed of more women than men. Our higher rankings our about 50/50.

As for Judo and getting stuck at brown belt... Isn't there more than one brown belt in Judo? It would be natural to get stuck there if there are two levels to being a judo brown belt. How do they work to help combat dropoff?

I believe the US associations do, in Europe there is only one degree of brown normally.

I read through your article and could have replaced all the times you used the word BJJ with Judo and white/blue belt with kyu grade and blacks/browns with dan grade.

There is a near mirror image problem in Judo with low level recreational competition. There is an absolute dirth of women competitors at all levels but in particular at the intermediate middle stages.

There is generally an issue with grappling and attracting and maintaining female participants and most of the steps to redress the balance are structural and only in the hands of a school owner. They are also simultaneously structural issues that are completely out of the hands of the school owner such as culture and gender issues.

yes, there are three degrees of brown where i live. so it's more useful to talk about kyu grade than belt color, at least in judo. i find that a certain number of people get stuck at the point where they have to start winning in promotional tournaments to advance. in my area that's sankyu or first brown. you watch people drop out or hover at that grade for a while, but the natural competitors breeze right through it to nikyu (second brown) and beyond.

i think this is a good thing, to be honest. some people do not have it in them to be a shodan in judo.

"Face punches are an essential character building part of a martial art. You don't truly love your children unless you allow them to get punched in the face." - chi-conspiricy
"When I was a little boy, I had a sailor suit, but it didn't mean I was in the Navy." - Mtripp on the subject of a 5 year old karate black belt
"Without actual qualifications to be a Zen teacher, your instructor is just another roundeye raping Asian culture for a buck." - Errant108
"Seriously, who gives a **** what you or Errant think? You're Asian males, everyone just ignores you, unless you're in a krotty movie." - new2bjj

ok so I have written a two part blog on hitting a plateau in bjj... I've called it the BJJ triangle

There's lots of plateaus in bjj. But I think you're right on your blog posts identifying a big one. To me that's where the transfer to identification with your lifestyle happens. Where it becomes "who I am". Or "what I like". Or "one of my core hobbies". I think those that don't make that identification transfer tend to drop out.